Photographer
Even This is Rome
Cities around the world often exhibit similarities in various aspects, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish one from another. These similarities can manifest in artistic elements, degraded areas, commercial zones, markets, business environments, groups of non-integrated people, romantic waterfronts, suburbs, places of worship, university campuses, riverside areas, and spaces designated for evening strolls.
Rome is no exception to this rule. While walking around the city, I often find myself surprised, thinking: “Amazing, it feels like I’m somewhere else… but I’m actually in Rome.” Despite its grand monuments and ancient ruins, which make it one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Rome shares some traits with other metropolises.
So, this is Rome too
Perhaps it’s because Rome has “seen it all” that history has left both marks and scars on it, acting as both a burden and a driving force. Even today, the city operates at multiple speeds: it is simultaneously submissive and democratic, devout and irreverent, cynical and superstitious, embodying both the vices and virtues of humanity.
A layered city with multiple polarities, which is both victim and perpetrator of itself.
It gathers the memory of past cultures, yet seems to have no memory of its own.
It gathers the memory of past cultures, yet seems to have no memory of its own.
Rome is a city that has known abundant suffering. Both loved and despised, exploited and pitied, exalted and scorned, it sometimes loses its sense of identity in its attempt to define itself: whether it’s the Rome of the Popes, the new capital, the hub of tourism, or the political arena. In the process, it risks losing self-awareness.
Rome emerges as a complex stage for human life, a city of eternal beauty and painful contradictions. It’s a place where time seems suspended between ancient ruins and frenetic modernity, a city that has long been loved and exploited, exalted and pitied. In this captivating complexity,
Rome sometimes loses the thread of its own identity, becoming a mirror of the mystery and grandeur, but also the sufferings, that characterize the human experience.
Little street urchin of deception, the cunning, treacherous and mocking one, she seduces you and then kills you.
But the anger lies in the decay, in remaining submissive. In complaining and waiting for the master from above to renew her, often forgetting her own dignity.
The charm of Rome lies in its immeasurable beauty and in the coexistence of diverse souls that inhabit it. From the historic center to the outskirts, from the Rome of the Popes to the working-class districts, every corner and every street tell different stories. Each “soul,” in its own way, finds its place in this fascinating mosaic.
